From the Archives, 7 Jun 2001
J&K:
THE PERSPECTIVES CONTRASTED
Pratividrohi
The Indian state has reinforced its liberal-democratic credentials by its surprising, yet welcome, invitation to the Pakistani CEO to a dialogue on the troubled relationship to include the salient issue of Kashmir. In the same breath it discontinued the ‘ceasefire’ in J&K against the anti-national elements therein. This ‘blow hot-blow cold’ policy has been a fixture in Indian approach to J&K (if not to security itself), right since 26 Oct 1947 when Nehru promised a reference to the people of J&K of their ruler’s accession to the Union of India even as the Indian Army readied to move to rescue them from the tribal invasion.
Ever since, India’s actions have been under
scrutiny from both quarters of the security spectrum – the conservative and the
liberal. This is unexceptionable for it indicates the democratic health of a
polity wherein an influential security debate is cacophonic at the best of
times, and sometimes polemical. Navigating through this, the stewardship of the
Indian state acquires the surreal quality of pachydermic progression –
accurately summed up in the cliché ‘muddling along’. Such an approach is
perhaps a humane way to tackle the complexity of the uniquely Indian condition
– that of a state encompassing a continent. This essay seeks to discuss the
J&K problem in light of the debate between the two schools of thought.
The Realist Critique and the Rationalist Response
The realist critique[1]
has its origin in the conservative perspective. It defines the problem as one
of Pakistani creation and sustenance and consequently only amenable to a
military solution. On the recent efforts towards a negotiated peace, it has two
major reservations. One is that it questions the viability of the Pakistani state
as an interlocutor, given that it is a ‘failed’/’failing’ state. With the
fundamentalism becoming increasingly autonomous both within Pakistan and in
J&K, appeasement through talks is not the answer. Secondly, it notes that
peace talks send disorientating signals to security forces, for they
necessarily require a nuanced control of military operations for tacit
bargaining.
With regard to the assertion that peace initiatives through
political dialogue with the militant groupings tantamount to ‘appeasement’,
three points raised by the rationalist school need to be noted. One is that it
would be a symptom of a militarized polity, and worse a militarisation of
society, should this not be undertaken. It is beholden on a liberal-democratic
system to search for solutions outside the military template, even if the same
is simultaneously operative. The state
has to be responsive to the urge in civil society to retrieve the situation.
Second is that not doing so is to put too large a premium on a military solution.
It can be empirically demonstrated that the search for the elusive military
‘victory’ is to chase a receding horizon. The outgoing Army Chief, Gen. VP
Malik, said as much in relinquishing command in highlighting the need for a
political solution. Lastly, there is a need to operationalise strategies
originating in the peace studies discourse. This is occasioned by the fact that
these may offer hitherto untested avenues of exit from quagmires of violence.
Whereas most of the theorizing is of recent vintage, the original
counter-insurgency doctrines of the era of decolonisation also give preeminence
to the political over the military.
In so far as the present peace inititative goes it is in
the long sequence of efforts to bring back normalcy to J&K that began with
the elections of 1996. The argument here is that indications are that the
affected people are so inclined. It is therefore incumbent on a representative
government to seek to materialize the inchoate articulations of a people in the
midst of what amounts to a human tragedy. Secondly, the military has had a fair
share of autonomy to combat the anti-national menace there, and continues to do
so. Any constraints (e.g. the necessity to use minimum force) are inherent in
the situation wherein the operations were incident in demographic terrain.
The Wider Debate
In the realist perspective, aid and abatement by Pakistan
as per a supposed plan (Op Topac to some!) led to the onset of the ‘terror’ in
J&K. Pakistan has sought to undercut India by tying Indian conventional
superiority down in a low cost ‘proxy war’. Therefore, since violence is the
language of power that the Pakistanis have chosen, the Indian response has to
be appropriately framed in a language they understand. The Kashmiri input into
the unrest is declining for the foreign islamists have hijacked the issue for
the greater glory of their brand of islam. This indicates that the
geo-political ends of the Pakistani state are only part of the problem – the
more pertinent part is now that of radical islam. Pakistan is unlikely to
restrain the ‘jehadis’, given its fear that that they can well turn against it,
and in so doing deal a deathblow to the quasi-modernist order in Pakistan. The
answer is therefore to ensure the defeat of these forces, thereby gaining moral
ascendancy and conveying a message to this hydra-headed threat on Indian
resolve.
On the contrary, the rationalist viewpoint focuses more on
the domestic politics angle, and lays a considerable proportion of the blame on
our mismanagement of the sensitive border state. In this interpretation, once
the militancy had erupted in an initial bout of active people’s participation,
it was seized on by Pakistan for its own strategic ends. The importance of
acknowledging Indian contribution to the problem lies in the premium thence
laid on the need for a peaceable solution. In rationalist argumentation
continued Kashmiri involvement is given greater credence. The statistics in
terms of the dead/apprehended indicate that armed action by disaffected Kashmiris
has not ended, for up to two thirds of the militants are indigenous. This
constituency, being made up of Indian citizens (as against the ‘foreign
mercenaries’), requires a moderate approach by a representative government. In
so far as the foreign militants are concerned, the military operations have to
be progressed in a people-friendly fashion. This may entail difficulty in
operational translation, but this is not beyond the tested professionalism of
the redoubtable Indian military.
Suffice it to point out that the Kashmiri participation is
what gives the problem the dimensions of an insurgency, as against it being
characterized solely as ‘terrorist’.
However, the incidence of concomitant terrorism in demographic terrain requires
that the counter is more mindful of the human environment. Therefore, the space
created by the security forces in their containment of the insurgency cum
terrorism needs to be exploited for initiation of a purposeful dialogue that
may be within the constitution or within the limits of ‘insaniyat’ (norms of
humanity). This is the rationale of the dual track approach of India in
appointing Mr. Pant as the nodal negotiator. National interests being
permanent, pursuit of the same required movement on the intractable issue of Kashmir
after a hiatus of in official contacts with the military regime in Pakistan.
These are seen as best met when negotiating from a position of strength. The
sense in doing business with a military head of Pakistan is that ultimately it
is the military that decides, and will be unlikely to sabotage its own
decisions. This is lesson has been well learnt from the collapse of the Lahore
Process.
The ‘Core’ Issue
To the realists this amounts to ‘chasing a chimera’.
Kashmir is merely a symptom of a larger phenomenon. The main problem to them is
the ascendance of the fundamentalists in Pakistan and the afghan-taliban
regime. The threat is in the importation of the same into our land through the
aegis of vulnerable sections of our minority communities. Evidence of a
‘strategic penetration and encirclement’ is mounting. The Pakistani strategic
purpose of an India at war with itself will be served if India were to engage
and thereby embolden these forces.
In the rationalist position, the rogue state on the block that
is the fount of religious fanaticism - taliban’s Afghanistan – is seen in
different light. The taliban is seen as having diverted some of its radical
energy against an India that it sees as part of the concert of powers that is
denying it its due. It is moot that a satiated Afghan regime, even if it is a
taliban one, is in Indian interests – for it is likely to be more of a problem
for Pakistan. The present symbiotic linkages between the two will likely
unravel, with the Pakhtunistan issue coming to the fore. Even our realist lore,
in the form of the Kautilya’s mandala philosophy, suggests we befriend a
neighbor’s neighbor.
On the problem of minority management, the rationalists
have different take. The viewing of the minority issue as security issue leads
to a self-fulfilling prophecy, wherein its suspect bonafides gives the minority
a complex. This suits both majority and minority communalisms, for they
represent the same ideology of identity politics. This may be exploited by the
ISI as part of its mandate. Since security analysts are deemed to indulge in
apolitical commentary, the danger is in their version being distorted, for it
highlights only the role of the ISI at the expense of the local political
dynamics,. It is for this reason that the uncritical acceptance of the reach of
the ISI prevalent in realist discourse is dangerous.
The linkage is generally made that the minorities may
suffer a backlash should the state offer any concessions in arriving at an
amicable solution to the J&K problem. This is has two counter-arguments.
One is that the Kashmiris and the coreligionist minorities elsewhere in India
are held as mutual hostages to stymie any imaginative political and
constitutional breakthrough on the Kashmir issue. Secondly, by way of analogy,
it may legitimize the false belief that led to the 1984 anti-sikh riots – that
ordinary Sikhs elsewhere were in some way implicated in the heinous act of
their coreligionists. Therefore not only is such linkage contrived, it is also
dangerous.
Conclusion
The realist formulation on security issues has been the
dominant one in the national security discourse, ever since the onset of the
1962 syndrome. It is rigorous for it has the adherence of committed exponents
who form the majority of the strategic community, some of whom have held office
dealing with the security function of the state. It also has institutional
support for the agencies charged with the social responsibility of security for
state and society. However, the rationalist’s activist counter has the force of
moral authority. Firstly, the credit for India’s just claim to have dealt with
the problem humanely (in comparison with the manner other such instances have
been tackled elsewhere from Algeria to Chechenya) lies in part with the
rationalist school that has acted as the self-styled liberal conscience of the
nation. Secondly, it has enabled the marshalling of forces in favor of
dialogue, both in India and Pakistan - the latter through the Track Two
initiatives.
Rightly the Indian state has approached the problem along both tracks, mindful of the strengths of both perspectives. Inevitably, its bifocal perspective has pleased neither completely. In keeping with the principal point of counter-insurgency theory, it is mindful that each insurgency is different, requiring a case specific approach. For the security forces this implies operations in keeping with the trusted WHAM principles; for the government it implies persisting with the political prong of the counter-insurgency effort.
[1] For a sample of the realist critique, refer KPS Gill and Ajai
Sahni, ‘The J&K Peace Process: Chasing the Chimera’; Faultlines,
Volume 8, pp. 1-40. This paper attempts to provide a divergent perspective on
certain points that appear in this article, and in strategic literature
elsewhere. It is a debate that should rightly find reflection in the premier
in-service journal on counter-terrorism and insurgency, Pratividrohi.
